Georgia Health News: Budget Squeeze Dooms Public Health Clinic Public health officials are closing a primary care clinic at the Lowndes County Health Department on Sept. 30 because of budget problems. The Valdosta clinic has been serving patients for more than a decade. The 400 to 500 low-income people who regularly get free services there are mostly middle-aged, and roughly 80 percent of them have diabetes or hypertension, says Dr. William Grow, who is district health director. They don't qualify for Medicaid or Medicare, he says. ... What's happening in Lowndes County has played out in other areas of the state after years of tight budgets (Miller, 9/22).
California Healthline: New Law Allows Physicians To Move Children From Acute Care Physicians in California are not allowed to transfer children who are under care of the state and in acute care facilities, even if moving them to a subacute facility would be a better option for them. Assembly member Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) wanted to change that with AB 667. Yesterday, Gov. Jerry Brown (D) agreed and signed that bill into law (Gorn, 9/22).
Kansas Health Institute News: Small-Biz Health Insurance Legislation To Be Revived A health insurance bill from the 2010 legislative session that pitted the state's small-business lobby against the Kansas Insurance Department will be revived in the 2012 session. ... The measure, if approved, would allow small-business owners to buy or subsidize an employee's purchase of an individual health insurance policy and get a tax credit, as do employers who offer coverage through a group plan (9/22).
This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.